Talk:Lorelei

Dwarf legends unsourced

The start of the myth section references the oldest legend being dwarves, but I can find no evidence of that anywhere. I'm trans and choose the name (with a different showing), so I'd love for that to be true, so if anyone can, cite a source. Otherwise it should be removed.

Picture of "Loreley" Sign

The sign labelling the rock is in bad taste. Is that sufficent grounds to remove the photo of it? (Say yes!) Wegesrand (talk) 11:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Last Verse

The article is really well written! However, the last verse is just a "little" bit incorrect, and i changed it.

"Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn"

The "ich glaube" clause means "i believe" or "i suppose". This changes the meaning of the song, because the element of NOT knowing is a literary device that was employed purposefully. I'm open, as always, to opposing views! O'Donnell 19:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

You are right, O'Donnell. "Konjunktiv", as the german grammar calls it. And he (Heine) changes to "Infinitiv" in the last two verses; thats just great. Its a fact that the Loreley have done this with her singing...but WHAT have she done? That the shipper sinks? That someone believes the shipper sinks??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.18.7.238 (talk) 20:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC) in the last two lines, not verses.

Added a picture

I added a picture that i took at the Lorelei from a view where the maiden could have potentially sat. I hope everyone likes it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tobyw87 (talk • contribs).

Trivia section

The majority of the trivia section is found on the Lorelei (disambiguation) page, and is therefore redundant. The rest of the info should be on the disambiguation page, since trivia sections are discouraged. Unless someone can come up with a better solution, I'll move the pertinent trivia info to the disambig page in a week. Joliefille 05:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks @Joliefille:, wherever you are these days. Sadly it looks like the trivia remained and became a magnet. I will see if anything is worth salvaging. - Hunan201p (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Needs some work

There's some use of first person in here, which shouldn't be there. The trivia section needs trimmed quite a bit, mainly, nearly all of it should go. After that, I'd think it's a pretty good article. 65.189.170.90 10:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Lonnie Donegan should be included, with a link to his Wikipedia page

Lonnie Donegan, the King of Skiffle, did a song called Lorelei. It had to do with having kissed various girls around the world, "but I never knew what kissing was 'til I kissed Lorelei." The punch line is "Kissing is her specialty, her one and only dish,/'Cause Lorelei's a mermaid, half a woman, half a fish." I can't find anything online about this song. Jwoiton 17:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of songs, should the Dschinghis Khan song Lorelei be mentioned? It is directly about the matter of this article. Xavius, the Satyr Lord (talk) 11:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Along the lines of Lorelei song trivia, there's also a track by Eagle Eye Cherry called "When Mermaids Cry". I've attached the first stanza to prove relevance, although I'm not convinced it's in the article's best interests to make it a collection of pop culture links.

"She was drowned in suicide/ Faithless lover cast aside/ This is how she came to be/ Lorelei of the sea/ Hopes destroyed, she wanted to find/ Certain death peace of mind/ Now you wonder who is she, Lorelei of the sea/ Many tales I've been told of sailors having died/ After seeing a mermaid known/ Known as Lorelei/ Faithless lover that is me/ And she siren of the sea/ So next time that the seagulls fly/ Don't you cry sweet Lorelei" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.8.225 (talk) 00:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Name / Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Why at Loreley, not Lorelei? The latter is more common. Rich Farmbrough, 20:38 28 January 2008 (GMT).

Yup. Agree. The Yeti (talk) 01:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparing google hits -

Loreley vs. Lorelei - 1.3 mill:2.9 mill

Loreley Germany vs. Lorelei Germany - 113000:159000

Loreley rock vs. Lorelei rock - 181000:497000

Loreley legend vs. Lorelei legend - 238000:367000

In addition the BBC [1] and MSN Encarta spell it Lorelei. On the basis of this I'm going to request move the page to Lorelei. The Yeti (talk) 04:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose pending other quality sources or arguments. Raw Ghits alone won't hack it here. BBC uses both forms in the cited piece and Britannica uses Lorelei. But check out this painted on the rock itself:

File:P6240741.JPG

— AjaxSmack 21:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

• Don't put too much store on the BBC link - the h2g2 stuff is user-generated content that the BBC just hosts. However, I also wouldn't give much weight to the painted sign either, as it hardly qualifies as an English-language text. In my reading the -ei spelling has been more common by a decent margin, so I'd expect to see that used as the title, and the unanimous use of -ei in the encyclopaedias swings it for me. Knepflerle (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It seems as if some ignorant people write your English encyclopaedias. I happen to be a lifelong Rheinländer, and no one here uses the spelling "Lorelei". Heinrich Heine was already using the spelling "Loreley" in his poem of 1824, and it has never changed since then. Perhaps you should take a look at the German Wikipedia before judging everything after you distorted Anglo-Saxon standards. Reibeisen (talk) 13:44, 20 July 2009 (MEZ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.36.247.155 (talk)

Agreed, the correct spelling has the 'y' at the end. The spelling with 'i' would be more common if it was a modern word - but it is an old name. Maybe worth to mention : The Loreley rock has a natural open air concert stage on top : http://www.rockpalastarchiv.de/l1_e.html or http://www.rockpalastarchiv.de/l2_e.html -- 87.79.206.107 (talk) 09:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

That was my point. Of course "Loreley" is the correct spelling. Sorry, people, but everyone in Germany will laugh, if you spell it "Lorelei". Please change the word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hartmutgermany (talk • contribs) 21:17, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It's ok, vee have decided to change the spelling of Grand Canyon in WP:DE to Gränd Kennjönn. Doceddi (talk) 21:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Techno track inspired by Lied der Lorelei

The first 4 lines of the song for Lorelei are referenced in a techno track played by Geoffroy aka Mugwump (http://www.myspace.com/geoffroymugwump) at Kompakt Night in Belgium in May 2009.

Here's the mix that contains the track: http://www.samurai.fm/player/index.php?id=4625 . The lyrics start at 41:43 .

If someone could identify the track, I think this would be a good and reliable reference to add to this article. 24.143.72.201 (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Translation

I added a link to an English verse-translation of Heine's text, since it seemed apposite, and there wasn't one already. Szfski (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The link to the text and translation leads to an error page. This link needs to be updated to point to a better location, for instance: http://ingeb.org/Lieder/ichweiss.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.40.8 (talk) 14:29, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I just want to say that the correct spelling in German is "Loreley", sometimes (poem of Brentano) Lore Ley (or Lore Lay). The "y" is essential. Best wishes from Germany — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.18.7.238 (talk) 20:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I beg your pardon. Brentano also writes "Loreley" ("Loreley!/Loreley!/Loreley!/ Als wären es meiner drei!"). Eichendorff writes "Lorelei" ("Du bist die Hexe Lorelei"). In common is "lore Ley" next to "Loreley". There are two another important Loreley-poems, one by Erich Kaestner, one by Karl valentin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.18.7.238 (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Cultural references

Right, hello, I am going to go through this section and seriously edit it down, I am already wikifying it to conform to italics and suchlike, but all the non-notable stuff is going to go, if you have a claim that your reference is notable, then speak up. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 00:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Please see section note before adding extra cultural references, this is beyond a joke, only significant works of art featuring or referencing the Lorelei in a major way will be included, please see Wikipedia: Trivia and Wikipedia: Handling trivia. I am also going to clean the External Links section. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 12:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

correct spelling

sorry, but the wiki is so important, and the word "Loreley" (of course with an y at its end) is so common in Germany: Please change it! If the english Wiki calls it "Lorelei", everone in Germany laughs and laughs. The name is "Loreley", period. Only the poet Eichendorff called it "Lorelei", and that was an reading mistake. Brentano: Loreley. Heine: Loreley. Please change it!

picture of fountain

A picture of the Heine Memorial was added semi-recently, http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Lorelei&diff=prev&oldid=494440464. While the article does refer to this statue, I don't feel a picture is warranted here, since the article is about the place, not Heine's poem, much less the mythical figure alluded to there. Thoughts anyone? Otherwise i will remove it. cheers, Doceddi (talk) 14:28, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The place cannot be separated from the mythical figure and the folk tale (is there a separate article for that? I don't find one on the disambiguation page). And it is rather surprising that in the far-away Bronx a German peculiarity is remembered. ♆ CUSH ♆ 18:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

There's little in the article about the geology or the place, which would seem to have little significance without Loreley herself. The memorial to the lyrical poet Heine, which features Loreley, acquired a special significance beyond its artistic merits: in Düsseldorf, where the memorial for Heine was enthusiastically planned, the concept became bogged down in anti-Semitic, nationalist, and religious criticism by the time the fountain was finished. Through the intervention of German American activists, led by Carl Schurz, the memorial was to be transplanted to a very prominent location (the plaza at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue) in Manhattan. There the memorial statue became embroiled in yet another foolish controversy, then found its way to a prominent position in The Bronx, at 161st Street and Grand Concourse. This means a lot in New York. There is only one pre-1945 German memorial to Heine, in Frankfurt. See: "Sturm und Drang Over a Memorial to Heinrich Heine" The New York Times (27 May 2007). See also:Lehman College, Public Art in The BronxFconaway (talk) 20:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

.. would seem to have little significance without Loreley herself -- oo, you'd not say that if you'd ever been there :) it's a very striking geological / landscape formation. I don't dispute the significance of the memorial -- in fact, i added the link to the article. i'm just questioning the justification for a picture here. cheers, Doceddi (talk) 13:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

In that case, the physical point and its geology deserve more extensive treatment in the article. If the image of Loreley doesn't belong here, neither would the discussion of the folklore and the literary imprint of Loreley. They are of a piece. And they belong somewhere: perhaps a separate article, but only if the legend would have existed independently. Is there evidence on this question? Fconaway (talk) 08:26, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Judging from the article, there may have been an actual echo or whisper from the rock. Very few boatmen actually were ever done in by the river at that place, and there was no historical beguiling Loreley. The story was all made up by Brentano's imagination. This became a very Nineteenth-century motif with Twentieth-century implications. Rhinemaidens and similar themes, with a Danube locus, are found in the Song of the Nibelungs and in earlier Norse/Germanic literature.Fconaway (talk) 09:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Middle Ages

This was flagged for follow-up by WikiProject Middle Ages, yet the article has a focus on Nineteenth century literary history: it has practically nothing to do with the Middle Ages. I have removed.Fconaway (talk) 21:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Instances of Lorelei (with an "i")

I note that User:Cush systematically changed instances of "Lorelei" to "Loreley" in the article and scrubbed mention of the former from the lede [2] However it must be noted that "Lorelei" has in fact been used, e.g. note the sheet music from 1859 where it is clearly spelled with an "i" in the title, "270. Lorelei."

and in the last line: "und das hat mit ihrem Singen die Lorelei gethan."

Note the statue in NYC, as per the NYC Parks website: [3]

"The Heinrich Heine Fountain (also known as the Lorelei Fountain) honors the German poet, writer, and social dissident Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), whose poem Die Lorelei immortalized the mysterious creature of romantic legend."

So, to the extent that this was an overzealous edit, it needs to be repaired. -- Limulus (talk) 09:29, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Good move, thanks. I think that there is a lot of confusion, as an English speaker I have always known it as "Lorelei" but someone above states that there is no "Lorelei" ever in German which your post above clearly shows to be untrue! CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 10:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if both had previously been in use, similar to humblebee and bumblebee, but "Loreley" is the only form in use today in Germany. -- Limulus (talk) 10:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC) Another possibility is that Silcher made a typo and it's been repeated (esp. in EN speaking countries) for over a century and a half! ;D Note e.g. [4] [5] etc. -- Limulus (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I also just found this stamp:

Which appears to show the original Silcher sheet music; note what appears to be "Lorelei" at the top. -- Limulus (talk) 10:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This article is about the place and the mythical creature it is named after. Both are spelled Loreley. And the original Heine poem was named "Die Lore-Ley" (with a hyphen), as well as the Lied by Silcher. What other (antiquated?) versions exist should not matter in an encyclopedia, although they should be mentioned, of course. ♆ CUSH ♆ 16:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, indeed; I'm not suggesting moving the article back to Lorelei- it's fairly obvious that Loreley is correct in German. What I am saying though is that the i-spelling is important for the EN language Wikipedia; it was noted that it seems to be more used in english usage. I suggest that all i-instances we use have quotes to indicate they're being used intentionally. -- Limulus (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Lorelei Mike Cline (talk) 14:35, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

---

Loreley → Lorelei – Well, no, I don't think should have been moved to "Loreley". Certainly not without discussion. Let's think about this.

• WP:COMMONNAME says "...as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources." Note that, generally speaking, German sources have little standing in this. That is why our article on the capital of Italy is named Rome and not Roma, and there are very many similar examples. (Places that don't have common English names or much treatment in English sources are treated differently and may devolve to the local or official name. That doesn't apply to this very famous hunk of rock and its associated entities.)
• Take a gander at Lorelei (disambiguation). Lorelei much? I count four "Loreley"s among a forest of "Lorelei"s. There's some more at "Lorelei (name)". That's not counting the lyric in Beautiful Dreamer ("the wild lorelei") and many other places that don't show up at the pages mentioned -- as shown in this Google Ngram, which pretty much seals the deal I'd say.
• FWIW (and granted it's not worth much) there are two ways to pronounce the string "Loreley" in English: "Lor-lay" or "Lor-eh-lay". I can't read IPA, but I've always heard it pronounced "Lor-eh-lie", which "Lorelei" renders more or less correctly in English (it could also devolve to "Lor-lie"), which is probably why that's the name in English for the rock and associated entities, and helps explain why I've also never seen "Loreley" in my life (and I've been around the track a few times).
• Also FWIW (and its worth even less), it appears that even in German "Lorelei" is at least an alternate spelling, per the thread immediately above.

I think this is an open-and-shut case. It is a very well-known term in the English speaking world, and the preferred English spelling is "Lorelei". Herostratus (talk) 01:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support, per Columbia and Britannica. The nom's ngram is pretty convincing. Kauffner (talk) 04:00, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support per above (plus my never having seen this word spelled "Loreley" before). 213.246.91.158 (talk) 09:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support. I agree there was never any valid reason for this to have been moved to Loreley in the first place. older ≠ wiser 14:09, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Deor (talk) 23:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

• Reject. This article is about a German place (the photo already shows its correct name) and a German mythical figure. The name is Loreley with a y. The article should use the proper name currently used in Germany. It's bad enough that München gets messed-up to Munich, et cetera. WP has no right to rename places just for the convenience of ignorant anglophones. ♆ CUSH ♆
  • I'm afraid I have more bad news for you: Deutchland is only a redirect! Kauffner (talk) 15:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
    • maybe cz it's spelled rong? Doceddi (talk) 16:57, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Maybe, but Deutschland is also a redirect to Germany. Cush, if you're doing this to other articles, you need re-education I'm afraid. See WP:COMMONNAME, and cogitate on that fact that on the German Wikipedia. de:United States of America is a redirect to de:Vereinigte Staaten -- which is entirely right and proper, since that encyclopedia is in German. This one's in English. Herostratus (talk) 20:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Noli Me Tangere

In the Philippine novel Noli Me Tangere, the Lorelei is mentioned in the seventh chapter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.161.122 (talk) 12:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Spelling

Loreley

• In 1903 in almost all German terms letter "y" was changed for letter "i", but in some German names, letter "y" was kept, such as Speyer, Loreley, Spay, (Rheinberg-)Orsoy, …
• Loreley is the spelling preferred by Duden, the standard orthographic dictionary of German language, 24th edition, 2006. I never have seen it with an "i" in German texts. Even the large painted sign on the base of the rock uses that spelling. The photographer, who transferred the photo from en.wikipedia under the wrong spelled name, was an American.--Ulamm (talk) 23:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
• Referring to the discussion above: "Germany" is the English exonyme for "Deutschland", but "Lorelei" is no exonyme. If it is politically incorrect to use "Lleyn" for "Llŷn" Peninsula, a correct spelling of Loreley can be requested. But Lorelei is not even an Anglization, it is a ridiculous over-Germanization of a German name.--Ulamm (talk) 23:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it's how the rock is denoted in English and the English-speaking world, generally. For good or ill or rightly or wrongly. Herostratus (talk) 00:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The spelling should be its traditional German spelling: "Loreley" cf. another German-speaking fieldname (also for a rock) "Richelsley" http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Richelsley